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No Sabah holiday for Malaysian leaders

Children who daydream love looking at maps. As a schoolboy, I could easily remember the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island, because it looked like a barking dog.

In those days, the eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo island were under-developed and considered, well, a little ‘backward’ by folk on the peninsula. But we loved them all the same – especially the Iban people and their ‘long houses’ in Sarawak and pictures of exotic Bajau on horseback in Sabah.

And of course, the promise of ‘adventure’ although what that meant, we really couldn’t say.

It’s a very different picture now, as Sabah and Sarawak are courted by all political colours in Kuala Lumpur, as it’s especially crucial to the centre’s hold on power.

For many Australians, including some of my ABC colleagues, the chief attractions of Sabah are diving at Sipadan (we are bronzed Aussies after all), the mysterious and ancient Mount Kinabalu, the turtle islands and the wildlife of the national parks.

Little attention

It does not surprise me that the month-long siege of a sleepy coastal village in Sabah has received scant media attention in Australia, except possibly, the ABC’s Asia Pacific News Centre.

With a general election looming, the siege, which began almost unnoticed in mid-February, is the biggest news in Malaysia and proving to be more politically awkward than the opposition Pakatan Rakyat and supporters constantly snapping at the government’s heels.

The Sabah intrusion is also significant because it has again unearthed old quarrels between Malaysia and the Philippines over the state, even though Kuala Lumpur and Manila have so far been cooperating cordially in trying to get the interlopers to leave.

The troubles began when a group of about 200 disgruntled Filipino Muslims from Mindanao decided to ‘reclaim’ the state for the self-proclaimed "Sultan of Sulu", whose forebears once ruled over islands that are now part of the southern Philippines, as well as Sabah.

The intrusion on the village of Tanduo has been described as the worst security challenge faced by Malaysia since the post-independence "Emergency" against Communist cells. After all, what could be more confronting than neighbours claiming your backyard as their own?

That it has been a full month and the Malaysian authorities have not achieved a decisive result is very awkward indeed for Prime Minister Najib Razak. After all, general elections must be called by the end of April.

Then there are the many questions in voters’ minds which are articulated freely on the internet. How did the Filipinos enter Sabah without notice? What was the coastguard doing? Why have southern Filipinos been sailing blithely across the Sulu sea over the decades unchallenged?

While there are legitimate "Suluks" who have settled for decades in Sabah, after fleeing southern Mindanao at the height of the conflict between the separatist MNLF and the Philippine army in the 1970s, question-marks remain over the dramatic rise in the migrant population over the last couple of decades.

The population of southern Filipinos has quadrupled since the 1970s – the Philippines estimating that 800,000 Filipinos now live in Sabah.

The Malaysian government is under scrutiny by a commission of inquiry on illegal immigration, including whether identity cards (ICs) and citizenship had been issued over the years to illegal migrants, mainly from Indonesia and the southern Philippines, in exchange for votes.

Phantom voters

Illegal migration is also linked to "phantom" voters (deceased or people not eligible, but found on the official electoral register).

Another accusation is that the government turned a blind eye to the southern Filipinos’ free access to Sabah because they are Muslims and the state has a large Christian population – the inference being that Muslims vote UMNO (the dominant party in the BN coalition) and Christians, the opposition.

And so Sabahans’ patience were tested for three weeks, before Kuala Lumpur flexed a little muscle and unleashed what wire reports described as a "fierce assault", to flush out the intruders. A "mopping up" operation since has so far proven inconclusive, although authorities have reported that over 60 intruders had been killed.

The government also rejected a "ceasefire" offer by the followers of the Sulu royal house. Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Himidi said: “We want the intruders arrested or dead”, after it was discovered that eight Malaysian policemen were killed and possibly maimed during the siege.

Sabah has long been an East Malaysian battleground between the government and the Opposition, not to mention the longstanding (and irritating) doubt of sovereignty cast by southern Philippine Muslim groups.

BN lost five states to the opposition, and its two-thirds majority in parliament at the 2008 general election. GE13 this year is expected to be even closer.

I recall an old peri-bahasa (Malay saying) - “Bila gajah bergaduh, rumput yang terpijak” - which is to say: When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.

As a boy from the peninsula, I won’t presume to speak for east Malaysians. But I rather suspect that long-suffering rural Sabahans do not give a fig about politics. They would rather reclaim normality, live their lives free from fear and intruders, and see their children thrive at school, so they, too, may enjoy some of the fruit of rapid development in their flourishing state.